Grand Old Party isn’t what it used to be

By Susan Hartley

February 21, 2014

To the Editor:

The Grand Old Party and Democrats have been called a lot of names over the years, some printable, some not. The titles I remember that struck most were Democratic Party for the poor and middle class and the Republicans well-to-do and upper class. If you look at both parties and the policies they have persuade. Labels assigned to them seem to fit. Before we get all excited about picking on the GOP, this is not the party that I remember of Ike, Taft, McCulloch. It’s the party that has been taken over by the Right, Far Right, Evangelicals, and worst of the worst — the Tea Party. Where it once negotiated, compromised, won some and lost some. It’s turned into a party of my way or the highway and refuses to compromise or negotiate. In the last five years they have used every tactic in the books to stall, delay, hinder or impede the Obama administration even shut down the government at a cost of $24 billion dollars while inconveniencing millions of people. The money lost could have been better spent on other things. The unemployed, food stamps, poor, infrastructure, creating jobs, anything but throwing it away. Before Obama proposed even if they were for it. And make him a one-term president. The best example of that was the Affordable Care Act implemented by their presidential candidate in Massachusetts. Gov. (Mitt) Romney, which was the blueprint for the AFA better known as Obamacare. To further prove their dislike of Obamacare and Pres. Obama, they voted over 40 times to repeal the AFC knowing full well that it would not pass the Senate and if it did, the president would veto it. They could have taken that time working to improve AFC. Instead they wasted the time. Duh! To be continued?